Nutritious Norwegian Lefse Potato Bread by Ruth Paget
After eating at Norske Nook in DeForest (Wisconsin) on my 2026 Wisconsin vacation there, I purchased The Last Word on Lefse: Heartwarming Stories – and recipes too by Gary Legwold as trip follow up reading and as a souvenir.
From the opening sentence, you can see that Legwold wants to preserve a cooking tradition that is practiced by Norwegian grandmothers but not by children and almost no grandchildren.
The tradition that Legwold is researching and writing about is the making of Norwegian potato lefse bread by home cooks. Lefse provided early Norwegian pioneers in the Upper Midwest of the United States by the Canadian border with food during harsh winters. In Europe, lefse is important for sustaining the Norwegian population during the German occupation of Norway during World War II.
Corporations took over the role of making lefse for many people and ship it all around the US to Norwegian-Americans. Legwold visited several firms making lefse first, but sought out the grandmothers who make lefse from boiled potatoes not instant mashed potatoes.
When he found grandmothers who made lefse in towns of 2,000 in Minnesota, for example, Legwold documented how they made lefse in step-by-step photographs in his book.
The steps break down as follows in lefse making:
1-boil potatoes
2-mash potatoes
3-put mashed potatoes through a potato rice
4-add recipe ingredients to form a dough and roll dough into thin sheets
5-cook the dough sheets on a griddle turning once
6-fold the cooked lefse into triangles
Obtaining thin sheets of dough is difficult. Dough tears when it is rolled thin. Legwold suggests using a pastry sheet over a grooved Norwegian rolling pin and placing dough on a pastry sheet on a board to roll out.
Legwold provides several recipes for sweet and savory lefse. Legwold’s grandmother’s recipe calls for:
-riced potatoes
-flour
-margarine
-carnation milk
Potato lefse provides carbohydrates for energy, protein, Vitamin C, potassium, and some Vitamin B6.
I am not Norwegian (perhaps by osmosis), but as a former small town Wisconsin dweller, I have attended lutefisk suppers where potato lefse is served. I like it with butter, but many people eat it with butter, cinnamon, and sugar.
Based on its nutrition profile, I think lefse is worth learning how to make for potato lovers.
People interested in recording how traditional foods are made in their family might The Last Word on Lefse by Gary Legwold to be a useful guide. Anthropologists and historians might like this book as a guide for this reason as well.
Note: Lefse is usually eaten as part of a lutefisk dinner. My blog about Legwold’s book on lutefisk follows along with general notes on Norwegian culture:
https://ruthpaget.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-last-word-on-lutefisk-reviewed-by.html?m=1
Happy Eating!
By Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe's Lessons written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
-developer of the Novogod and Bento War Games + 8 Classical Western Civilization War Games
-developer of food and beverage knowledge games
-creator of online exhibits about San Miguel Arcanagel Mission, French baguette making, and the Carmel Valley History Center
-creator of French travel and culture games
-writer of 1900+ Central Coast California lifestyle blogs
-family genealogist
-developer of 9 music theory games
